Merchants use a variety of techniques to establish loyalty with their customers, such as to foster repeat business and referrals from those customers. One popular technique for merchants and other organizations to establish loyalty is to employ a loyalty program (also referred to as “rewards” or “incentive” programs) that allows affiliated users to earn rewards based on their actions. For example, in loyalty programs provided by merchants, customers of the merchants may typically earn loyalty program points for joining the program and for each dollar spent with the merchant, and may later use their earned points to obtain various benefits. Examples of types of merchants that often provide such loyalty programs include airlines (e.g., via frequent flier programs), rental car companies, hotels, credit card companies, online and brick-and-mortar retailers of various types, etc.
As noted, after users earn sufficient loyalty program points from an organization, they can typically use those points to gain various benefits from the organization. In particular, a user may be able to use loyalty program points from an organization to obtain discounts on and/or free copies of items from the organization (including products, goods, services, information, etc. that are available from the organization for purchase, rent, lease, license, trade, evaluation, sampling, etc.). For example, a user having sufficient loyalty program points from an airline may be able to obtain one or more free flights from the airline and/or one or more upgrades from a basic level of service to a higher level of service (e.g., to upgrade to first class). Similarly, a user having sufficient loyalty program points from an online retailer may be able to acquire one or more items from the retailer at a discount or for free.
In some situations, an organization may allow users having points in the organization's loyalty program to use those points to gain benefits from other affiliated organizations. Thus, for example, a user having sufficient loyalty program points with a first merchant may be able to obtain a gift certificate from a second merchant who is affiliated with the first merchant. After receiving that gift certificate, the user may then use the gift certificate to assist in acquiring goods from the second merchant. Such inter-organization use of loyalty program points provides expanded options for customers of the first merchant to benefit from the loyalty program, thus enhancing the value of the program to the customer, as well as providing benefits to the first and second merchants.
Unfortunately, such inter-organization use of loyalty program points also creates various problems. One significant problem is that the conversion of loyalty program points from a first organization to a gift certificate or other benefit from a second organization is typically a time-consuming process that may take numerous days and is susceptible to manual processing errors at one or both of the organizations. Thus, a user may be disinclined to engage in such a conversion, lowering the value to the first organization in providing such an option for loyalty point use. Moreover, by directing a user to engage in transactions directly with the second organization, a user may be less inclined to continue engaging in additional transactions with the first merchant.